The full Christmas dinner – with all the tinnings...

It’s definitely the most unusual Christmas dinner I’ve ever had... but whether I would like to repeat the experience is far from certain.

The ‘Hot Can’ is a self-heating tin containing all the elements of a traditional Christmas meal, from “succulent” turkey and chipolatas to roast potatoes, carrots and gravy. There are no sprouts but you do get chestnuts!

All for the princely sum of £5.99, the blurb on the side of the large white capsule before me boasted that the unique device would provide a “delicious hot meal in minutes - any time, anywhere”, with no need for a microwave, a kettle or any cooking implement.

Campers, hikers and those with a military background may be familiar with the way such cans work and it’s really quite a simple concept.

Inside the container is a can of food, surrounded by an outer can, and in the space between the two cans is a chamber, which contains a water sachet and granular limestone, the same compound found in some toothpastes.

To heat the can I simply had to use a provided metal spike, like an Allen key, and insert it into three holes in the top rim of the can. This pierced the water sachet, causing the water to flow into the limestone, and sparked off a natural reaction between the two, which produced heat.